Chapter 9 - Rick Had Protected Dustin Without Realizing It
Three days later, Rick called me.
He wanted to apologize.
I told him I wasn’t the person who needed one.
So he called Lauren.
Later she told me what he said.
For years, Rick had dismissed Dustin’s temper as competitiveness.
Dustin punched lockers.
Broke training equipment.
Shoved sparring partners after rounds ended.
Once screamed at a receptionist until she cried.
Rick always handled it internally.
Run extra laps.
Temporary suspension.
Apology.
Back to training.
Nothing seemed serious enough to destroy a fighter’s career over.
But viewed together, it was a pattern.
Rick admitted:
“I kept thinking discipline inside the gym would fix behavior outside it.”
It hadn’t.
The gym suspended Dustin immediately pending investigation.
Rick also created a formal conduct policy for fighters because, as he later told me:
“I had rules for what they did inside the cage. Not enough rules for who they were outside it.”
That did not make him responsible for what Dustin did to Lauren.
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But he understood that ignoring repeated aggression had helped Dustin believe consequences were always temporary.
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